The Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Board, Governors and staff accept all the Francis recommendations in principle, and commit to implementing all those which are relevant to a hospital environment. The Trust is committed to delivering care and treatment in accordance with the principles set out in the revised NHS Constitution and to using the NHS Values, which are embodied in our own organisational values; Patients First, Personal Responsibility, Passion for Excellence and Pride in our Team as the foundation for all that we do.
We will continue to build an organisational culture founded on honesty, openness and continuous improvement, which recognises and reports errors and poor care and enables a swift and effective response. Our commitment to a culture free from the fear of retribution when issues or concerns are raised is unequivocal as is our determination to place the interests and needs of our patients at the heart of our organisation.
Since the first Francis report was published the Trust has been taking action to deliver on the recommendations and learning through a number of different work-streams and initiatives.
A selection of this work is listed below:
Improving quality and safety:
- Improving patient experience through implementation of the Friends and Family Test and improved management and response to complaints, in particular to ensure learning is captured and embedded in practice
- Appointment of a Chief of Patient Safety to lead on the development of a safety conscious culture where safety sits firmly at the top of our agenda
- Developing and implementing the Trust’s Nursing and Midwifery Strategy “Together we Care”
- Accreditation of the Best Care Programme – a ward based programme which aims to ensure patients receive the very best care; each ward is measured and assessed on a number of key quality and safety indicators with clear improvement plans in place where required
- Our ‘24 Hour Hospital Watch’ – involving small teams of staff, including participation from external stakeholders (e.g. Healthwatch), who undertake an impartial ‘watch’ of our hospitals over a 24 hour period including thorough patient involvement in safety and quality issues
- The introduction of Schwartz Rounds – providing an opportunity for staff to discuss the emotional impact of managing particularly difficult cases in a safe and confidential environment
Developing a clinically led organisation:
- Greater engagement with our clinicians so we can develop a truly clinically led organisation
- Development of a number of leadership programmes to support both clinical and non-clinical leaders
- Empowering teams through our dedicated programme ‘Team ASPH’, building a coaching and mentoring approach to help teams improve
Creating the right culture:
- Commitment to the Nursing Times’ Speak out Safely Campaign to ensure our staff know they can raise concerns safely
- A cultural programme to develop a stronger sense of citizenship amongst staff through initiatives focused on health, wellbeing and resilience (part of our ‘Employee Promise’ strategy)
- Developing a set of values based behaviours that staff can identify with
- A greater focus on staff engagement and discussion right across the organisation – using the “Wall” (an open digital discussion board), Sounding Boards (small groups of staff from a variety of disciplines and levels), wider Listening Events and encouraging and widening our interaction via social media
- Developing a structured programme of events to celebrate and reward our staff
Ensuring safer staffing:
- Trust Board agreement and implementation of a Safe Staffing Framework – a commitment to agreeing and ensuring the right number of staff for individual clinical areas and openly publishing the numbers on duty on any given day
- Focused work to develop a career and competency framework for Health Care Assistants
